Infants' visual attention to own-race and other-race faces is moderated by experience with people of different races in their daily lives.

Infants sometimes differentially attend to faces of different races, but how this tendency develops across infancy and how it may vary for infants growing up with different exposure to racial diversity remain unclear. The present study examined the role of experiences with racial diversity on infants' visual attention to different racial groups (specifically own-race vs. other-race groups) in the first year of life via a large-scale study of infants (N = 203; Mage = 6.9 months, range = 3-14 months; 70% White, 8% Asian, 5% Black, 12% multiracial, 4% unreported; 14% Hispanic, 86% non-Hispanic) from across the United States. We tested the role of two forms of racial diversity: that of infants' social networks (reported by parents) and that of infants' neighborhoods (obtained from U.S. Census data). Regardless of age, infants looked longer at other-race faces than own-race faces, but this tendency was moderated by the racial diversity of infants' social networks. Infants with more diverse networks looked equivalently long at own-race and other-race faces, whereas those with less diverse networks looked longer at other-race faces. In contrast, infants' looking behavior was not moderated by the diversity of their neighborhoods. Together, our research suggests that exposure to racial diversity in infants' immediate social networks predicts how infants look to faces of different races, illustrating the context-dependent nature of the development of infants' attention to race. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Does racial diversity affect White children's racial bias and reasoning? Depends on where they live and how their social world is structured.

By 4 years of age, White children from across the United States begin to exhibit an awareness of racial inequalities, along with in-group preferences for other White children. The present study explored how the size and racial diversity of White children's social network (e.g., friends, family, and classmates) and neighborhood (zip code) are related to variation in their explanations for racial disparities and anti-Black bias among a sample of 395 White children (ages = 4-11 years old; Mage = 6.6 years) from 263 unique zip codes across the United States. White children in neighborhoods with low diversity were more likely to endorse an extrinsic explanation for racial inequality as their network diversity increased, whereas network diversity did not relate to children's choices for those who lived in neighborhoods with high diversity. These findings held even after controlling for parents' beliefs about diversity, which were themselves positively correlated with children's network and neighborhood diversity. An exploratory analysis revealed that for White children in small networks only, as the number of children of color in their network increased, they were more likely to choose to play with a Black child. Results demonstrate how the diversity of children's social networks and neighborhoods relates to children's developing racial beliefs in contextually dependent ways. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Structural explanations for inequality reduce children's biases and promote rectification only if they implicate the high-status group.

Children begin to participate in systems of inequality from a young age, demonstrating biases for high-status groups and willingly accepting group disparities. For adults, highlighting the structural causes of inequality (i.e., policies, norms) can facilitate adaptive outcomes-including reduced biases and greater efforts to rectify inequality-but such efforts have had limited success with children. Here, we considered the possibility that, to be effective in childhood, structural interventions must explicitly address the role of the high-status group in creating the unequal structures. We tested this intervention with children relative to a) a structural explanation that cited a neutral third party as the creator and b) a control explanation (N = 206, ages 5 to 10 y). Relative to those in the other two conditions, children who heard a structural explanation that cited the high-status group as the structures' creators showed lower levels of bias, perceived the hierarchy as less fair, and allocated resources to the low-status group more often. These findings suggest that structural explanations can be effective in childhood, but only if they implicate the high-status group as the structures' creators.

The effect of group status on children's hierarchy-reinforcing beliefs.

Members of advantaged groups are more likely than members of disadvantaged groups to think, feel, and behave in ways that reinforce their group's position within the hierarchy. This study examined how children's status within a group-based hierarchy shapes their beliefs about the hierarchy and the groups that comprise it in ways that reinforce the hierarchy. To do this, we randomly assigned children (4-8 years; N = 123; 75 female, 48 male; 21 Asian, 9 Black, 21 Latino/a, 1 Middle-Eastern/North-African, 14 multiracial, 41 White, 16 not-specified) to novel groups that differed in social status (advantaged, disadvantaged, neutral third-party) and assessed their beliefs about the hierarchy. Across five separate assessments, advantaged-group children were more likely to judge the hierarchy to be fair, generalizable, and wrong to challenge and were more likely to hold biased intergroup attitudes and exclude disadvantaged group members. In addition, with age, children in both the advantaged- and disadvantaged-groups became more likely to see membership in their own group as inherited, while at the same time expecting group-relevant behaviors to be determined more by the environment. With age, children also judged the hierarchy to be more unfair and expected the hierarchy to generalize across contexts. These findings provide novel insights into how children's position within hierarchies can contribute to the formation of hierarchy-reinforcing beliefs. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: A total of 123 4-8-year-olds were assigned to advantaged, disadvantaged, and third-party groups within a hierarchy and were assessed on seven hierarchy-reinforcing beliefs about the hierarchy. Advantaged children were more likely to say the hierarchy was fair, generalizable, and wrong to challenge and to hold intergroup biases favoring advantaged group members. With age, advantaged- and disadvantaged-group children held more essentialist beliefs about membership in their own group, but not the behaviors associated with their group. Results suggest that advantaged group status can shape how children perceive and respond to the hierarchies they are embedded within.

A developmental investigation of group concepts in the context of social hierarchy: Can the powerful impose group membership?

Group membership is not always voluntary and can be imposed within a social context; moreover, those with power disproportionately shape group membership. We asked if children and adults view group membership as imposed by the powerful. We undertook four studies (465 children ages 4-9, 150 adults): Studies 1-2 used novel minimal groups; Study 3 used 'cool' and 'uncool'; Study 4 used novel ethnic groups. In the first three studies, children saw groups varying in power asserting that a non-categorized individual ought to belong to one of the operating groups in the context. Adults indicated that the declarations of the high-power group (and only the high-power group) made the individual a member of the declared group. Young children rejected that group membership could be imposed. In Study 4, children of all ages reasoned that the high-power group could decide membership for a consenting individual and impose clothing restrictions on a non-consenting individual; unlike adults, children of all ages did not reason the high-power group could impose group membership more frequently than chance. Taken together, adult participants consistently reasoned that group membership was imposed and disproportionately by those with power but children, more often than adults, reasoned that group membership was voluntary.

Social essentialism in the United States and China: How social and cognitive factors predict within- and cross-cultural variation in essentialist thinking.

People intuitively view some social groups (such as Black people, Muslims, and women) as having biological underpinnings and discrete boundaries. Essentialist beliefs about social groups shape how people view themselves and others, leading to a number of negative social consequences. Whereas previous research has demonstrated variations in social essentialism within some Western societies, less is known about how social essentialism manifests in East Asian cultures that have well-documented differences in social values and cognitive styles from Western cultures. The current research investigated cultural variations in social essentialist thinking in the United States and China to reveal how cultural ideologies and social belief systems shape people's basic representations of the social world. Analyses revealed several cultural and social correlates of social essentialism both between and within the cultures and demonstrated the mediating role of collectivistic values in predicting cultural differences in essentialist beliefs about group coherence.

Stereotypes as prototypes in children's gender concepts.

How do gender stereotypes shape prototypes across development? In the current pre-registered study with children ages 3- to 10-years-old and adults (N = 257), participants made judgements about which members of gender categories (boys and girls) and animal categories (for comparison) were the most representative and informative about their kinds, using simplified scales of five category members varying on a stereotypical feature (e.g., girls wearing more or less pink). Young children chose boys and girls with extreme stereotypical features (e.g., the girl in head-to-toe pink) as both representative and informative of their categories and this tendency declined with age, similar to developmental patterns in prototypes of animal categories. Controlling for age, children whose parents reported more conservative social-political views also held more extreme gender (but not animal) prototypes. Thus, stereotypes play a central role in children's gender prototypes, especially young children and those living in socially-conservative households. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://youtu.be/Ps9BwuukyD0 RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Stereotypes play a central role in children's gender prototypes, especially young children and those in socially-conservative households. Children ages 3-10 and adults chose which girls, boys, and animals were most representative and informative. Younger children chose category members with more extreme stereotypical features (e.g., the girl in head-to-toe pink) than older children and adults. Children with more conservative parents also held more extreme gender prototypes.

Speaking of Kinds: How Correcting Generic Statements can Shape Children's Concepts.

Generic language (e.g., "tigers have stripes") leads children to assume that the referenced category (e.g., tigers) is inductively informative and provides a causal explanation for the behavior of individual members. In two preregistered studies with 4- to 7-year-old children (N = 497), we considered the mechanisms underlying these effects by testing how correcting generics might affect the development of these beliefs about novel social and animal kinds (Study 1) and about gender (Study 2). Correcting generics by narrowing their scope to a single individual limited beliefs that the referenced categories could explain what their members would be like while broadening the scope to a superordinate category (Study 2) uniquely limited endorsement of gender norms. Across both studies, correcting generics did not alter beliefs about feature heritability and had mixed effects on inductive inferences, suggesting that additional mechanisms (e.g., causal reasoning about shared features) contribute to the development of full-blown essentialist beliefs. These results help illuminate the mechanisms by which generics lead children to view categories as having rich inductive and causal potential; in particular, they suggest that children interpret generics as signals that speakers in their community view the referenced categories as meaningful kinds that support generalization. The findings also point the way to concrete suggestions for how adults can effectively correct problematic generics (e.g., gender stereotypes) that children may hear in daily life.

Developmental origins of anti-Black bias in White children in the United States: Exposure to and beliefs about racial inequality.

Anti-Black racism remains a pervasive crisis in the United States. Racist social systems reinforce racial inequalities and perpetuate prejudicial beliefs. These beliefs emerge in childhood, are difficult to change once entrenched in adolescence and adulthood, and lead people to support policies that further reinforce racist systems. Therefore, it is important to identify what leads children to form prejudicial beliefs and biases and what steps can be taken to preempt their development. This study examined how children's exposure to and beliefs about racial inequalities predicted anti-Black biases in a sample of 646 White children (4 to 8 years) living across the United States. We found that for children with more exposure to racial inequality in their daily lives, those who believed that racial inequalities were caused by intrinsic differences between people were more likely to hold racial biases, whereas those who recognized the extrinsic factors underlying racial inequalities held more egalitarian attitudes. Grounded in constructivist theories in developmental science, these results are consistent with the possibility that racial biases emerge in part from the explanatory beliefs that children construct to understand the racial inequalities they see in the world around them.

Parents' Political Ideology Predicts How Their Children Punish.

From an early age, children are willing to pay a personal cost to punish others for violations that do not affect them directly. Various motivations underlie such "costly punishment": People may punish to enforce cooperative norms (amplifying punishment of in-groups) or to express anger at perpetrators (amplifying punishment of out-groups). Thus, group-related values and attitudes (e.g., how much one values fairness or feels out-group hostility) likely shape the development of group-related punishment. The present experiments (N = 269, ages 3-8 from across the United States) tested whether children's punishment varies according to their parents' political ideology-a possible proxy for the value systems transmitted to children intergenerationally. As hypothesized, parents' self-reported political ideology predicted variation in the punishment behavior of their children. Specifically, parental conservatism was associated with children's punishment of out-group members, and parental liberalism was associated with children's punishment of in-group members. These findings demonstrate how differences in group-related ideologies shape punishment across generations.

The influence of linguistic form and causal explanations on the development of social essentialism.

Generic descriptions of social categories (e.g., boys play baseball; girls have long hair) lead children and adults to think of the referenced categories (i.e., boys and girls) in essentialist terms-as natural ways of dividing up the world. Yet, key questions remain unanswered about how, why, and when generic language shapes the development of essentialist beliefs. The present experiment examined the scope of these effects by testing the extent to which generics elicit essentialist beliefs because of their linguistic form or because of the causal information they convey. Generic language led children (N = 199, Mage = 6.07 years, range = 4.5-7.95) to essentialize a novel social category, regardless of the causal information used to describe category-property relations (either biological or cultural). In contrast, both linguistic form and causal information influenced adults' (N = 234) beliefs. These findings reveal a unique role of linguistic form in the development and communication of essentialist beliefs in young children.

How children's media and teachers communicate exclusive and essentialist views of science and scientists.

Language that uses noun labels and generic descriptions to discuss people who do science (e.g., "Let's be scientists! Scientists discover new things") signals to children that "scientists" is a distinctive category. This identity-focused language promotes essentialist beliefs and leads to disengagement from science among young children in experimental contexts. The extent to which these cues shape the development of children's beliefs and behaviors in daily life, however, depends on (a) the availability of identity-focused language in children's environments and (b) the power of these cues to shape beliefs over time, even in the noisier, more variable contexts in which children are exposed to them. Documenting the availability of this language, linguistic coding of children's media (Study 1) and prekindergarten teachers' language from one science lesson (Study 2; n = 103; 98 female, one male, four unknown; 66% White, 8% African American, 6% Asian/Asian American, 3% mixed/biracial; 21% of the sample, of any race, identified as Hispanic/Latinx) confirmed that identity-focused language was the most common form of science language in these two samples. Further, children (Study 3; n = 83; Mage = 4.36 years; 43 female, 40 male; 64% White, 12% Asian/Asian American, 24% mixed/biracial; 36% of the sample, of any race, identified as Hispanic/Latinx) who were exposed to lower proportions of identity-focused language from their teachers developed increasingly inclusive science beliefs and greater science engagement over time. These findings suggest that linguistic input is an important mechanism through which exclusive beliefs about science are conveyed to children in daily life. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

How race and gender shape the development of social prototypes in the United States.

The present studies examined how gender and race information shape children's prototypes of various social categories. Children (N = 543; Mage = 5.81, range = 2.75-10.62; 281 girls, 262 boys; 193 White, 114 Asian, 71 Black, 50 Hispanic, 39 Multiracial, 7 Middle-Eastern, 69 race unreported) most often chose White people as prototypical of boys and men-a pattern that increased with age. For female gender categories, children most often selected a White girl as prototypical of girls, but an Asian woman as prototypical of women. For superordinate social categories (person and kid), children chose members of their own gender as most representative. Overall, the findings reveal how cultural ideologies and children's own group memberships interact to shape the development of social prototypes across childhood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Beliefs about social norms and racial inequalities predict variation in the early development of racial bias.

Racism remains a pervasive force around the world with widespread and well documented harmful consequences for members of marginalized racial groups. The psychological biases that maintain structural and interpersonal racism begin to emerge in early childhood, but with considerable individual variation-some children develop more racial bias than others. The present study (N = 116; 4-year-old children) provides novel insights into the developmental mechanisms underlying the emergence of racial bias by longitudinally documenting how two psychological processes-normative beliefs about interracial friendships and explanatory beliefs about racial inequalities-developmentally predict the emergence of pro-White/anti-Black racial bias during early childhood. In a 6-month, three-wave, longitudinal study, we found that 4-year-old children's beliefs that their parents and peers do not value interracial friendships predicted increased racial bias in and across time and that children's endorsement of essentialist over extrinsic explanations for racial inequalities predicted the developmental trajectory of racial bias over time. These findings suggest that children's foundational beliefs about the social world developmentally predict the emergence of racial bias in early childhood and speak to the importance of early and persistent intervention efforts targeting children's normative beliefs about interracial friendships and explanatory beliefs about racial inequalities.

Who is a typical woman? Exploring variation in how race biases representations of gender across development.

From early in development, race biases how children think about gender-often in a manner that treats Black women as less typical and representative of women in general than White or Asian women. The present study (N = 89, ages 7-11; predominately Hispanic, White, and multi-racial children) examined the generalizability of this phenomenon across middle childhood and the mechanisms underlying variability in its development. Replicating prior work, children were slower and less accurate to categorize the gender of Black women compared to Asian or White women, as well as compared to Black men, suggesting that children perceived Black women as less representative of their gender. These effects were robust across age within a racially and ethnically diverse sample of children. Children's tendencies to view their own racial identities as expansive and flexible, however, attenuated these effects: Children with more flexible racial identities also had gender concepts that were more inclusive of Black women. In contrast, the tendency for race to bias children's gender representations was unrelated to children's multiple classification skill and racial essentialism. These findings shed light on the mechanisms underlying variation in how race biases gender across development, with critical implications for how children's own identities shape the development of intergroup cognition and behavior.

Categories convey prescriptive information across domains and development.

Young children display a pervasive bias to assume that what they observe in the world reflects how things are supposed to be. The current studies examined the nature of this bias by testing whether it reflects a particular form of reasoning about human social behaviors or a more general feature of category representations. Children aged 4 to 9 years and adults (N = 747) evaluated instances of nonconformity among members of novel biological and human social kinds. Children held prescriptive expectations for both animal and human categories; in both cases, they said it was wrong for a category member to engage in category-atypical behavior. These prescriptive judgments about categories depended on the extent to which people saw the pictured individual examples as representative of coherent categories. Thus, early prescriptive judgments appear to rely on the interplay between general conceptual biases and domain-specific beliefs about category structure.

Why do children show racial biases in their resource allocation decisions?

Young children often prefer people high in status and with access to resources. Children also favor fairness and equality, especially when it comes to sharing. Two studies examined how children (N = 185; age range = 4.0-6.9 years, Mage = 5.49 years; 45% White, 12% Asian, 11% Black, 7% Hispanic, 24% other or undisclosed) reconcile these conflicting preferences by investigating the relation between children's social preferences and resource allocations to White and Black children. Race provides an important case to examine how children resolve this conflict given that children show preferences for stereotypically high-status (White) people but also show awareness of systemic racial inequality that disadvantages Black people. In a costly sharing resource allocation task (i.e., Dictator Game) where participants were asked how much of a limited resource they wanted to share with a Black child and a White child, Study 1 revealed that participants sometimes chose to share more with a White child compared with a Black child but that biased giving was unrelated to children's biased feelings of warmth toward White children. Study 2 confirmed that biased giving was unrelated to children's feelings of warmth and instead implicated children's beliefs about race and wealth; children who expected White people to have more wealth showed more pro-White bias in their giving behavior. Together, these results suggest that cultural stereotypes about wealth might shape children's economic decision making in a way that perpetuates disadvantage, but they also indicate that the processes underlying resource allocation decisions warrant further study.

The Unintended Consequences of the Things We Say: What Generic Statements Communicate to Children About Unmentioned Categories.

Adults frequently use generic language (e.g., "Boys play sports") to communicate information about social groups to children. Whereas previous research speaks to how children often interpret information about the groups described by generic statements, less is known about what generic claims may implicitly communicate about unmentioned groups (e.g., the possibility that "Boys play sports" implies that girls do not). Study 1 (287 four- to six-year-olds, 56 adults) and Study 2 (84 four- to six-year-olds) found that children as young as 4.5 years draw inferences about unmentioned categories from generic claims (but not matched specific statements)-and that the tendency to make these inferences strengthens with age. Study 3 (181 four- to seven-year-olds, 65 adults) provides evidence that pragmatic reasoning serves as a mechanism underlying these inferences. We conclude by discussing the role that generic language may play in inadvertently communicating social stereotypes to young children.

Does It Matter How We Speak About Social Kinds? A Large, Preregistered, Online Experimental Study of How Language Shapes the Development of Essentialist Beliefs.

A problematic way to think about social categories is to essentialize them-to treat particular differences between people as marking fundamentally distinct social kinds. From where do these beliefs arise? Language that expresses generic claims about categories elicits some aspects of essentialism, but the scope of these effects remains unclear. This study (N = 204, ages 4.5-8 years, 73% White; recruited predominantly from the United States and the United Kingdom to participate online in 2019) found that generic language increases two critical aspects of essentialist thought: Beliefs that (a) category-related properties arise from intrinsic causal mechanisms and (b) category boundaries are inflexible. These findings have implications for understanding the spread of essentialist beliefs across communities and the development of intergroup behavior.

Advancing Developmental Science via Unmoderated Remote Research with Children.

This article introduces an accessible approach to implementing unmoderated remote research in developmental science-research in which children and families participate in studies remotely and independently, without directly interacting with researchers. Unmoderated remote research has the potential to strengthen developmental science by: (1) facilitating the implementation of studies that are easily replicable, (2) allowing for new approaches to longitudinal studies and studies of parent-child interaction, and (3) including families from more diverse backgrounds and children growing up in more diverse environments in research. We describe an approach we have used to design and implement unmoderated remote research that is accessible to researchers with limited programming expertise, and we describe the resources we have made available on a new website (discoveriesonline.org) to help researchers get started with implementing this approach. We discuss the potential of this method for developmental science and highlight some challenges still to be overcome to harness the power of unmoderated remote research for advancing the field.